Ipomoea tricolor
Grannyvine is among the slowest-opening vines in the game — fewer than one in ten act later on turn one — so it almost always cedes the first strike and has to grind fights out.
Grannyvine (a morning glory) is among the slowest-opening vines in the game: fewer than one vine in ten is this slow to act on turn one, its opening initiative sitting at just 13 at Lv 40. In practice it almost always cedes the first blow and has to win from behind. It is a soft, twining vine — native to eastern and western North America, where it is a buffer, and an aggressive invasive across Africa, Europe, Oceania, South America and South Asia, where it turns attacker.
Its starter, Creeping Crush, unlocks at Lv 1 for 2 Sun: Crushes the whole back row under its own weight. — about 25 native / 29 invasive. The free once-per-battle ability, Structural Parasite (Lv 25), Rides the foe down and takes its place — it's driven out, withering. The advanced attack, Tendril Trap (Lv 40, 6 Sun), A tendril snare that saps as it tightens. — roughly 20 native, 24 invasive. None of its moves carries the initiative rider, so nothing offsets that slow opening. See moves.
Grannyvine keeps two always-on traits. Thigmotropic Coil arrives at Lv 10: when it is struck it coils onto the attacker and binds it briefly — a small answer to the fact that it usually moves second. Apical Dominance stacks on at Lv 68: while it is at full HP it hits harder, but that bonus is gone the instant it takes any damage. Below Lv 10 it has neither. See abilities.
Grannyvine is a true climber, so a Moss Pole fits it on either side of the board. Otherwise, its slow opening and soft body make defensive field gear attractive native, while invasive play leans on attack-boosting gear to make its second-strike blows count.
At Lv 40 grannyvine reads 103 HP native (89 uncushioned) on DEF 8, mid for a vine. ATK is 19 native, rising to 32 invasive as its wide introduced range feeds the attack. Retreat costs 16 Sun. Native it lends a bench overshield; invasive it pays Faustian self-damage per hit and concedes 2 prizes on a knockout. See stats.
By Lv 100 HP reaches 190 native while DEF settles at 15. Retreat rises to 33 Sun. Because grannyvine is tempo-poor to begin with, it is power-led almost from the start — there is barely a fast phase to lose — so leveling mostly stacks the bulk and attack it already relies on.
Roughly USDA zone 6a — it should come through winters that bottom out near -23 °C. Colder than that and it wants shelter, a wall, or a winter indoors. In the plant's own terms its comfortable range runs from a cold edge near 2.0 °C up to a warm edge around 27.4 °C, which puts it in a Temperate · wide-ranging band. Use that as a guide rather than a promise: the zone is an estimate carrying better than a full zone of error, which is why it reads "roughly."
The chip on the card reports the climate where you are standing, so the reading changes as you travel. Thrives here means your local winter low and summer heat both fall inside grannyvine's range, and it earns x2 battle XP; In range means it survives but sits near one of its edges (the longer label says which), for x1.25; Colder than its range and Hotter than its range mean your season runs past an edge, with no bonus. Battle XP is the only thing climate changes — it touches nothing about damage, stats, growth speed or the economy. A plant that reads "colder than its range" is usually just a tender plant facing a hard winter outdoors, not a weak card.
As a vine, grannyvine is a Competitor: extra damage into Ruderals (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), extra taken from Specialists (succulents, conifers, ferns, epiphytes), neutral against the Weird categories. See weaknesses & resistances.
Grannyvine is a grind-it-out attacker rather than a racer. It concedes the opening almost every fight, so its plan is to survive the first hit — its bind trait and a Moss Pole help — and then out-damage a foe over several turns, best done invasive where the attack climb bites. It is inedible, so any fertilizer banks the extra XP rather than coins, making it easy to grow out for the family tree. Its crossover level is very low (about Lv 12): it never really had a speed edge to trade, so play it as a slow, sturdy presser from the start.
Leveling trades speed for power. A plant’s tempo (SPD + INI, the turn-order edge) fades as it grows, while its power (HP + ATK + DEF, net of the rising Sun cost to retreat) climbs. The crossover is the level where power overtakes tempo: below it the plant is a fast skirmisher, above it a heavyweight. Shown for each stance this plant can actually hold — native adds a HP cushion, invasive an attack edge, neutral neither — with the card at its crossover and fully grown at Lv 100.